Blackberry KEYone Black Edition

Recently, we praised the Blackberry KEYone as one of the best android phones you can buy in 2017, fast forward 3 months and the company has released a very svelte midnight black edition that brings some welcome spec bumps to an already stellar device.

Instead of a rehash of our last review, most of the same awesome features are still here – a very comfortable qwerty keyboard with fantastic software based predictive text and programmable shortcut keys. A brilliant industry leading 12-megapixel camera with 1.55μm pixels plus auto-HDR, Phase Detect Auto Focus and electronic image stabilization. A powerful 3505mah battery that lasts all day and all night and lastly reassuring security thanks to DTEK by BlackBerry Privacy Monitoring App on top of a regularly updated Android 7.1.2 ensures your device is the most secure it can be.

Where things have changed begins aesthetically, with its new all black everything design motif. Gone are the aluminum edges and trim replaced with a stunning matte black, even the camera ring and letter inlays has been given a makeover and we must say it looks very sexy! However, besides the exterior, we also see that Blackberry/TCL have also upgraded the internals as well. The base storage now begins at 64gb, a standard for most smartphones this past year and still includes a microSD card slot for those who need more. There is also been a slight bump in RAM, from 3gb to 4gb and while this may seem minor, we will say that overall, we found things to be more fluid and snappier than our original review unit.

Also, worth mentioning is the usual array of connectivity options the KEYone employs including Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, and the inclusion of NFC all of which are powered by a Qualcomm 625 Octacore processor with 64-bit Adreno 506 and a 650MHz GPU that handles most tasks very well.

As we have stated previously, this is one of the more robust devices on the market, it is not a glossy ‘fingerprinty’ mess, it is unapologetic-ally different, and this is a great thing. If you are seeking a workhorse that is reliable and can hold its own next to some of the best devices on the market, doesn’t cost over $1000 to buy and is not made of fragile glass or will explode, this is the phone for you!